I always tell myself I’ll get some Christmas preparations done in November so December’s not such a whirlwind. Then the final week of November arrives, and I panic, realizing I’ve done nothing.

It doesn’t actually take as long as I think it will, once I set myself to work.

I’ve placed my orders with the photo site. I’ve bought my cards and (mostly) written our Christmas letter. And last night… I baked the first batches of shortbread.

My family arrived like crows in the kitchen as soon as they saw the butter softening in the bowl. By the time the first circle was cut, they were sneaking batter off the counter. And there were protests like the pipeline protests when I limited them to one cookie each after dinner.

My shortbread is well-appreciated.

It’s actually my mother’s shortbread. I make it each year from a recipe emailed in 2000. “How are things in wedding land?” it reads. “Are preparations going well? Our basement renovations are done and Dad has hung his stupid singing fish.”

Which makes me smile every year because the singing fish was a gift from my husband and it was a particularly inspired fish.

A few years ago, a friend wrote a cookbook and included recipes from our whole crowd of families. On my family’s page, she listed the ingredients for shortbread: butter, sugar, flour, cornstarch. Under method, it says: “Just call Tanya. Trust me, it’s easier that way.”

They don’t know that my shortbread isn’t as good as my mother’s. Maybe I don’t knead it quite right. She’s demonstrated again and again how to mix the flour until the dough is just the right consistency and the cracks appear. Mine is still never the same as hers.

What that email from 2000 should say is: “Call your mother. It’s better that way.”

But the crows don’t seem to mind.